from the open-faced-club-scroogewich dept

Let me let you in on a little secret: I don't really like Christmas. Through some combination of those horrible lights, that torture referred to as Christmas music, my disliking of receiving gifts and the proximity to the far superior holiday known as Thanksgiving, December 25th just never gets my trousers off, so to speak. It's led to some of my friends joking that I'm a modern-day Scrooge, which my bank account confirms I am, in fact, not. Besides, it turns out the Chicago area has a much better approximation for Scrooge than I in whoever owns Snarf's Sandwiches on the near North Side.

1. Due to increased competition and losses, ownership has decided to consider remodeling and reconcepting the store at 600 West Chicago Ave. 2. The store is closing, effective tomorrow, December 23, 2013 for an unknown period of time for this remodeling and reconcepting. 3. All staff is terminated, effective Monday, December 23, 2013. 4. All staff may apply for unemployment, if eligible. 5. Return any keys and Company property to Will Ravert at 600 West Chicago Avenue on Monday, December 23, 2014 during normal business hours. 6. Payroll will be processed as usual this week and paid on Friday, December 27, 2013. 7. Keep an eye out for the grand opening of the new store. 8. Ownership appreciates your service and wish you well in your new endeavors.

Doug Besant Director of Operations

Bullet point number seven is by far my favorite. Nothing makes a Christmas firing more satisfying than telling the folks fired they should totally come check out the new sandwich shop staffed with all the folks that took their jobs once it reopens. Now, it's interesting that the firing comes just a few days after the staff joined other fast food workers in striking for higher wages, but Snarf's spokeswoman Jill Preston says that's just a happy coincidence.

“During the Christmas holiday we’re pretty slow,” she says. “The restaurant’s usually three quarters closed. This does happen to coincide, but this is something we’ve had planned for awhile.”

So Snarf's has been planning this for some time, huh? In that case, I guess it was just sadism and a hatred for the working stiff that led to management emailing everyone with one day's notice of their termination? At Christmas? Classy. And breaking up with your employees via email? Well that's just the dingle berry on top of the poop sundae for your workers.

“Three days before Christmas and not even a call,” [Employee] Rojas says. “It’s not fair that management and the corporation is treating [employees] this way.”

It looks like Scrooge is alive and well and running a small sandwich shop in Chicago. And somewhere, Tiny Tim just kicked the bucket out of sheer dispair. Happy holidays.

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I don't know what the labour laws are there - but if this happened in Alberta they would all be entitled to severance because of how short the notice was, depending on how long they've worked there (Starts at minimum 2 weeks if they've been their 90 days.) If you don't get 2 weeks notice, you get paid for 2 week anyway. Goes up to 3 weeks after 2 years working for the same employer, and then increases over time.

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Ah there's your problem, you're confusing an actual democratic country like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, UK, most of the EU, Emerites, etc where Employment laws actually protect employees with the United States of America where money and corporate greed rule and the peasants can eat cake if they can even afford that.

look, sometimes i really wish you'd just go ahead and give us a live target. it's late, i'm tired, i just need a facebook page to go shit on, while i wait for the kids to go to sleep so we can play santa,

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As yes but the problem there is while the US doesn't have enough worker protections, amoung those you listed have the opposite problem and too much worker protection specifically with senior employees keeping jobs when they should be retiring and thus pushing younger employees out of the workforce.

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Loyalty IS still alive and well. It just dwells hidden away in the much smaller Ma & Pa stores, where employees and employer still understand the idea of "You look out for me and scratch my back, and I'll look out for you and scratch yours."

This is a day and age where Megacorporates are gutting employee benefits and pensions, insisting they do more work with less pay (And in cases like Internships, No Pay), and make it clear they have no problem seeing you as a commodity to be used up, until you're sucked dry like a juice box, then tossed aside while they reach for another...and then they wonder where Employee Loyalty went? It went out the window when it became clear Employer Loyalty was no longer going to be extended to your Loyal Employees. This is what the few Mom-and-Pop's that still function as such get, today.

Henry Ford may not have been a friend of Unions, but his rationale was that if you paid your employees a living wage, so they could buy your products and keep making you money by being loyal employees, they wouldn't HAVE to organize against you to get that. Funny how so many today openly admire Ford, but eschew one of his central philosophies...

Sounds more like..

This sounds more like a shop closing it's doors and closing the book before the end of the year, so they don't have to carry employees into the next year. Year end closings suck, but it's not entirely uncommon. Most do it a little further from the holidays, but it's not an off the chart move.

Sucks for the employees, but at least those who have the hours can apply for unemployment or other benefits from the government while they look for new, minimum wage jobs to replace the minimum wage jobs they are losing.

Hint to minimum wage workers: Your job isn't a career, stop trying to make it pay like one. Union action in fast food is humorous to say the least. While this shut down may or may not be related, take it as a warning shot, there isn't enough money in fast food franchises to pay you $20 an hour to make sandwiches and wash tables with the same filthy cloth all day.

In an ideal world, people would remember asshat tricks like this, and just not do business with the company. But you know what? No one cares, no one remembers. The world is a blur of change; companies change ownership, names, policies, staff - you can't keep track of it. A couple of months after the "reconcepted" restaurant opens, no one (except the embittered former staff) will remember it was ever different.

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Henry Ford operated in what was a closed loop system, the only competition was the competition playing in the same field (and mostly the same city) as him. His concepts, and the long running generosity with the labor unions during fat times is one of the major reasons that Detroit is a bankrupt, near empty shell of itself. Once competition came in from other places, where a good paycheck didn't come with a golden pension plan, all the bennies, and a truck load of money to screw on a bumper, the North American can industry nearly collapsed.

The problem here is people want to work what is a crap job (making subs) but want to make enough income to afford a full life, you know, a car, a nice place to live, a couple of nights out a week, and so on. Worse yet, some of these people think that a job sweeping up at the sub shop should pay enough to support a family. It's just not very logical, is it?

The unions certainly were part of the industrial revolution and getting things to be fair for workers. They stopped being about fairness and more about greed and pulling the blanket to their side at every turn. So many industries were decimated by expensive union labor, hard to manage shop rules, minimum staffing, and all sorts of silly things. Just remember, it can cost you nearly $2000 for an electrical hookup at a Las Vegas convention, thanks to the fine union people who have negotiated each hookup as a separate job, minimum 4 hours, lunch, call time, 2 men minimum, and a supervisor - and oh yeah, double time if they do it any time other than middle of the day.

I envision the invention of new food manufacturing equipment that will be designed in the near future when the minimum wage goes to $15 an hour.Start studying automated systems now to get in on the ground floor. So that you will be able to earn that wage.

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Time for a web app that lets you shit-list certain owners and keep track of them.

Don't like a current store, down mark it and it notes the current owners, investors, etc. Once you start down-voting over the period of say, 5+ years, patterns will probably start to emerge, like certain owners or investors behind every store that you don't like. The opposite will probably be true for up-voting.

All we need now is easy access to this information, like via RESTful services, and some analytics to data mine this stuff.

Otherwise, the sandwich shop might be screwed

I think there is a little problem of advance warning and pay that is going to be a bit problematic for this outfit.

You see, there are laws against firing people without due notice, and without adequate pay compensation.

I bet the Labor Department lawyers would be interested in this, and I bet they'll get really interested when all of the workers show up at the Unemployment office at the same time, with the same reason.

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In the Techdirtian Libertarian-Capitalist utopia, this is practically an ideal outcome! If people really disapprove, they won't patronize the new shop. God forbid this poor employer have any regulations governing their behavior when social pressure will undoubtedly result in the right outcome here.

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Small Business Exemption.

The WARN act only applies to employers who have at least a hundred full time employees (or equivalent), and are laying off at least fifty employees at one location. I think you would probably find that the individual sandwich shop is set up as an individual corporation, owning a franchise (and the laid-off employees work for that, instead, rather than the parent company out in Colorado), but even if it isn't, the second clause would apply. I believe the sandwich shop only has about twenty employees. Most labor laws have small business exemptions-- that's how they got them through Congress, by buying off the vast majority of employers.

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O please, I love Christmas (and hate the collective hysteria that comes with it) but you gotta love stories of Xmas "disasters" even if you are devout to the Christian dogma (I admit I'm not that devout even though I consider myself a Catholic).

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Bullsh!t. I know many people who work for Ma&Pa stores, and they are the worst offenders. They call you in for short shifts, don't pay you for meetings outside of work hours, don't pay you properly for stat holidays, etc. Then they claim they are unfamiliar with the law. Large corporations follow the law to the letter, because they know they'll get into trouble if they don't.

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Haaaaahahahahahaaaaaa - holy moly, the hits keep coming! Are you here all week?

"the living wage argument is utter nonsense"

Perhaps some sort of supporting rational is in order here, otherwise people might, you know, write you off as a crackpot regurgitating sound bites heard on wingnut radio.

There are plenty of studies and plenty of conclusions, most concentrate on the impacts upon municipal budgets, business and unemployment while few address the working poor and the levels of taxation required to support them.

Many libertarian/conservative types will state things like unemployment can be eliminated if minimum wage laws are repealed, this is ridiculous - obviously. But the point about living wage/benefits is even more obvious (by example) if you consider whether you would eat at a restaurant where the cook and wait staff are not given sick leave and often prepare food while ill. The restaurant owner apparently has little regard for not only the employees but also the customers. An additional item in this example is that health experts state (what should be an obvious fact) that malnutrition leads to more frequent illness. If you can not afford to eat well, you will get sick more often.

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Yes, I'm sure the sandwich shop owner was caught completely off guard by this most egregious employee rebellion.

There were simply no indications what-so-ever elsewhere, in the past, that might possibly imply low wage workers might be getting upset about the shitty working conditions, lack of benefits and minimum wages. Contrast this with the way they were informed of the shop shutting down until they can be replaced. It is appalling how crass these former employees are- disgraceful!

I'm sure that poor little sandwich shop owner will fill the open positions with replacement low wage earners who will be forced to work irregular part time hours with last minute schedule changes and without any benefits. It's good to be sandwich shop owner.

Being that the sandwich shop owner admittedly planned this for some time, how exactly did these terrorists cause the loss of "thousands of dollars" ?

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Yeah, it's puzzling that they assumed their boss would follow the federal law known as the NLRA which guarantees no retaliation for the federally protected act of striking. Why did they mind-bogglingly believe their employer wouldn't break the law?

Re: Got one too on the 23rd

Re: Otherwise, the sandwich shop might be screwed

How many sandwich shops do you know that have over 50 employees? Chicago is an at-will state, so if that is anything like my state (also at-will) these folks will be eligible for unemployment for termination without cause, and that's all the law allows for. It sucks, but it's legal.

Re: Re: Otherwise, the sandwich shop might be screwed

You know what? No one goes into business thinking "Oh boy! I'll be able to provide 10 unskilled morons who can't find anything better jobs!" They cost the employer money, they are not longer a worthwhile investment, so fuck them. They get what they deserve.

You want a job you're valued at? Go make yourself more valuable than a highschool student looking for dope money, don't demand to be overpaid for doing monkey work.

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The Service Industry has been keeping this economy a float for quite sometime now .. my advice to you is make sure you never call a guy a monkey when he's serving your food , caring for your children in daycare or installing your internet .

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This trope is a familiar one, it has been passed on by many a clueless wingnut over the years. Regurgitated vile and putrid, some things never change.

Fact is, many minimum wage jobs are held by college graduates not highschool kids. The global economy has undercut their prior positions and discarded them like garbage. These are people who worked diligently to improve themselves via higher education and experience - and they are told they are lucky they have a mcjob.

You may want to take a bit of your own medicine and educate yourself about reality rather than memorizing talking points.

Re: Re: What law was broken

Ok Mr Layer? what law was broken?

At-Will Employment in Illinois:

Illinois is an "employment at will" state. As such, at-will employees can be terminated for any reason. The only exception is for employees who are covered by a contract or union agreement governing the terms of employment. Employees who are covered by an employment contract can usually only be terminated for the reasons set out in the contract. At-will employment also protects the employee's right to resign.

Unlawful terminations violate legal protections, including discrimination or harassment, whistleblower protections, absence to serve on a jury, retaliation for asserting legal rights or violations of employment or union contracts. In such cases a fired employee could potentially file a wrongful termination claim.

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this was the worst PR move ever for a company

Sounds stupid in so many ways. Either they were firing bad employees, in which case they shouldn't have been hired in the first place or fired earlier, or they were firing good employees, in which case they should have warned them ahead of time what was happening and offered them a position at the new restaurant. In neither case is firing them all at the last minute a good idea, even if you don't care about being an a-hole.

Re: Re: Re: What law was broken

How about this part:

'Unlawful terminations violate legal protections, including discrimination or harassment, whistleblower protections, absence to serve on a jury, retaliation for asserting legal rights or violations of employment or union contracts. In such cases a fired employee could potentially file a wrongful termination claim.

Now, it's entirely possibly the store was going to fire everyone anyway with the move(which would be stupid, but whatever), but to fire them all shortly after a strike, even if the mass firing honestly had nothing to do with it, still makes the move look like retaliation on the part of the store owners.

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Yes the rope of economics. Like any other piece of equipment in a business, when an employee's upkeep costs more than the profit it brings in, you replace the piece of equipment, or worthless employee.

How many businesses have all of you economic geniuses run successfully?

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people installing internet make the $15 an hour these fast food slinging monkeys are boo hooing about, there are tons of dish networks installer jobs posted on the local job board in my area, they pay 12-15 starting, if you're making minimum wage, you are a drain on society and are not worth saving because you are too stupid or lazy to better yourself.

As for Child care, my wife doesn't have to work, and yet, I don't have a college degree, gee, it must not be hard to make it out there after all, if you're not a pussy.

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The term "economics" refers to the economy as a whole, you know - the entire nation and/or world.

The term "business" refers to a subset of this economy.

If one only looks at a subset, one does not see the whole.

Now - are you refuting the claim that many low wage workers have actually worked hard to better themselves? If so, please provide references and not from Fox News.

When off shoring the core of your business there are potentially many skilled employees left out in the cold, due to nothing of their own doing, and you are calling them worthless. If they knew this ahead of time, I'm sure they would have sought employment elsewhere, studied in a different field and/or moved. But wage slaves are disposable, amirite?

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I am, and I throw great ones, because I can afford to, because I didn't look at a highschooler's part time job as a permanent career choice.

You fascists on this board amuse me, "let's pay everyone $1000 an hour, it doesn't matter that their job is menial and requires the brains to just keep breathing, money is free, evil business owners must be forced to suffer and be punished if they make too much."

Like I said, how many successful businesses do you idiots run? How many employees do you have, what do you pay them, and how much profit per employee does the business generate?

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No, I'm refuting that people are trapped in burger joint jobs, and they are the only career choice.

I read one article that quoted a moron working at McDonald's for 10 years still making minimum wage, who was told by his boss "you shouldn't have joined that union". Let's see, you're making minimum wage for 10 years, yet you pay a "union" (Our McDonalds or some such) that doesn't have the power to negotiate your wages dues, rather than going somewhere else that has a 6 month performance review? You're making minimum fucking wage, retard, it isn't like a new job can pay you less!

It's hilarious to me that the railroads are always hiring people for 30k while in training up to 50k after 6 months, they have group interviews for up to 150 people, and they hold them every few months, yet people can't find jobs and are stuck in fast food.

You can go on the state employment service's website and find hundreds of 20k+ a year jobs listed, if you can't put together a resume to sweep floors at the high school, or walk around a warehouse after hours, then you are too stupid to live.

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A recent study showed that a single Walmart Supercenter was costing taxpayers 900K per year. Walmart does not pay a livable wage and therefore their employees qualify for and get government assistance in the form of food stamps, medicaid, housing assistance, etc. Multiply this by the number of similar stores nationwide and you get a significant amount of money. As a taxpayer, I find this corporate welfare to be an insult considering the income taken by the Waltons.

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I doubt you know what the word fascist means, but do continue.

The concept is probably beyond your comprehension, but providing sustenance to the poor is not equivalent to paying them $1K per hour. Your ridiculous exaggeration is a favorite talking point of the right wing and has no basis in fact.

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Side step the question, nice.

You read an article about one person working a McJob. This one data point supports your bias and therefore proves your opinion about millions of other people - awesome.

In your railroad story, how many positions were available? Just because they interview 150 people every few months does not mean there are multitudes of openings. There are many instances where only a few low wage openings were available but there were hundreds of applicants.

"... you are too stupid to live."Is that your "final solution" Adolf ?

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Yep. I'm a big fan of darwinism. Let them learn to live, or die, doesn't matter to me.

They have interviews with up to 150 people because they have to fill multiple positions. They pare down the numbers with a super hard test featuring such difficult questions as "do you break safety rules for speed?"

I figured that would be pretty evident as I'm using it as an example instead of bringing one out about 2500 people applying for 150 jobs at walmart, but then, we've already determined your reading comprehension id weak.

2500 people applying for 150 walmart jobs... Wow, what horrible jobs they must be.

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As for fascism, I have seen many of your smelly hippie ilk claim that any income over 250k should be %100 taxed, and then make people get free money every month for nothing, and put price control in place to beat inflation.

Government control of markets and strict regulation of means of production and income sounds pretty fascist to me. You douches are all for enslaving people, but not allowing them to die for being useless. That'll work out.

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Ok, first of all - I have not shown support in this thread or elsewhere for the 100% above whatever concept. Progressive income taxation has been around for a long time and the percentages have bounced up and down. In the US it has never been nor will it ever be 100%, although it was in the low nineties for a few years after WWII. You do understand what a progressive tax is - right?

Your comedic act is getting tiresome and you still have not provided an accurate description.

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Wow - a few isolated cases, what happened to the massive quantities of voter fraud claimed by those espousing these draconian voter id laws? Not found? Oh well, they just act like it's a really big problem anyway.

Those violations of existing laws amount to what percentage of the vote in those areas? Enough to change the course of an election? Yeah, I didn't think so. I suppose one could come up with many ridiculous proposals to eliminate all sorts of crime and include an ulterior motive too. Muhahahahhaha.

Obviously the problem is electoral fraud not voter fraud and the voter id laws do nothing to stop either. In factr, the argument can be made that these laws can be considered to be electoral fraud. They certainly are unconstitutional in that they disenfranchise eligible voters.

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There's no UNION! The place is closed. Not like he fired them all and just replaced them them all the next day! Asking for more pay on a job a monkey could do, well just dumb! Get a Education and then get a job that pays more money. Takes zero skill to make a sandwich!!! These people want more money, well that means prices would have to jump up. Customers would just go someplace else and the place closes as it can't keep it's door open. Still out of a job.

Maybe it's time to start up your own business, Pay yourself whatever you want and hire others and pay them the kind of pay YOU wanted at that other job. Good luck even getting it started up.

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If you don't like your job or pay, get a job someplace else and/or a Education to make you more valuable to deserve higher pay! Like other industries, if labor prices it's self out of the market, they will be replaced with Robots. have you heard of the ROBO BURGER!!! Yes, it's being worked on. Instead of 20 or so people working at a McDonald's, in the future it'll be 2-4 working. mainly just to clean the place. You'll place you're own order and the Robots will be doing most everything else.

It takes ZERO skill to work at a fast food place. I know, I worked at Jack in the Box for a few years. A couple of them actually. The second one in a whole other state while I went to trade school. I worked full time and went to school full time!!! Has very little free time. I started out at the Minimum of $3.35 a hour and got up to $3.90 a hour. Not a lot of money, not a so called Living wage. It's a Zero skill job for Young people, Kids to do until they get a REAL JOB!!!

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Why because they don't get paid $15 a hour? I was only getting $3.35 a hour working at Jack in the Box! How is getting Hired for whatever pay, $8.50 a hour for example and because he doesn't now want to pay you $15, he's treating you like shit? It's a zero skill job a monkey could do!!! We all wish we were making more money no matter what the current pay is. Make $20,000 a year, you wish you made $30,000 a year. Make a million, you wish you made 2 million. Whatever the range is.

A Sandwich shop shouldn't be paying people $15 a hour. That's crazy. I'm not going to subway and paying $10 for a sub!!! Few people will and the place has to close it's door and everyone loses their job!

Re: Sounds more like..

That's for sure and I worked at Jack in the Box when I was a kid at $3.35 a hour and finally worked up to $3.90 a hour after a couple years. Have these people not seen what happens when Labor costs get to high? They get replaced by ROBOTS!!! have they not seen Production lines filled with Robots? In China, Labor is cheap, lots of people working in the production lines, but as labor prices are going up, they are starting to be replaced by Robots!!!

Have these people not heard of the ROBOBURGER? Look it up on Youtube. It's pretty crude. But this stuff is all Standardized. You can build a new restaurant and have it mostly filled with Robots doing most everything other then cleaning the place.

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Already being worked on. Go to Youtube and check out ROBOBURGER!!! That's the future. These people thinking a zero skill job should be paid $15 a hour, HAHAHAHA. Either the place will have to bring in Robots to keep the doors open, or close up business. it's that simple. I had this figured out when I was a kid making $3.35 a hour at Jack in the Box! It's not a so called Living wage job. That's why it's suppose to be temporary!!!

If you don't like your pay, do something about it!!! Get a Education where you can make more money because it's a skilled Job that no monkey could ever do. Start up your own business and see how things are in the real world!!! Or try getting a job someplace else with better pay! Maybe a job you can start out at low pay, but learn on the job and gain the skills needed over time and work up to better and better pay, like a Apprenticeship type program!!! Plumbers, electricians, etc... Pay SUCKS but you're learning on the job from a expert and in however many years, you can be on your own making a lot more money or starting up your own small business in that field and working up to even better pay. Depending on how good your skill is. The great thing is you don't have a huge collage dept to pay back!!! You now have skills worth real money in the end!!!

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You need ID for all the free Government handouts, yet for some reason when it comes to Voting, the ID becomes a issue?!?!?! I mean really??? Even when it's offered for FREE it's still a issue. How you could possibly have no ID in this day and age?!?!?! You have to have some kind of ID for all the handouts. I wonder why the Democrats are so into Illegals getting this and that, and no ID for Voting, oh wait, now the picture is becoming more clear.